Arctic Monkeys Describe the Strange Feeling of Playing Old Material Live

Arctic Monkeys have grown up a lot since releasing their first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not back in 2006. Since then, the UK alt-rockers have released four more albums (including their recently released Mercury-nominated record Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino) and have transitioned into a more piano-led, space-age sound. 

They're currently on a massive world tour supporting Tranquility Base, and though they've sprinkled some older songs into their set list, like stripped down versions of "Mardy Bum," "A Certain Romance" and "Fluorescent Adolescent," vocalist Alex Turner still admits playing the old material feels more like covers these days.

“It feels like we’re doing a cover or something when we play the first album, really,” Turner divulged during a recent interview with BeatRoute. “But that’s fine. I don’t hate doing that. It’s just come to the point where I play ‘Mardy Bum’ or something like that and it doesn’t even feel like mine anymore.”

That being said, the singer does feel that there's a lyrical connection between his first album and his fifth.

“There’s something in the style of [Whatever People Say] and the style of [Tranquility Base] that felt quite direct in its lyrics,” Turner said.  “The first couple of records, a lot of it was explicitly about exact renderings of real events that had happened. After that I sort of scurried away from that kind of style, or at least being that explicit about it."

“I got more ingested in other areas of writing lyrics, or trying to write in different ways," he continued. "This time around, it seemed to have some of that essence of being as straight and direct as it was in the very beginning.”

Watch Arctic Monkeys performed a live rendition of "Mardy Bum" below.